MiKlip first phase: DroughtClip

Prediction of Multi-year Droughts

Drought periods lasting over several years have been documented during the observational period and prominent examples are the “Dust Bowl” in the United States during 1930th or the Sahel drought from 1970 to 1990. In Europe, the Iberian Peninsula drought 2004/2005 (Figure 1), although shorter in duration, had serious consequences for agriculture, electricity production and water resources, as the water reservoirs could not recover for many consecutive years. Due to their severe socio-economic impacts extreme drought events are of major concern under changing climate conditions. The possibility to forecast droughts, its onset, duration and strength years in advance enables decision makers to initiate precautionary measures. e.

Figure 1. (a) SPI-9 time series for the Spanish station Badajoz and (b) cumulated precipitation anomalies for the hydrological year (October to June), positive (negative) sums in the end of June in blue (red). (c) SPI-9 for Europe in July 2005, contour lines enclose regions with drought duration (SPI-9 less than -1) of 1 year and longer.